This IDB Working Paper is intended to provide an overview of how the agricultural sector is treated in regional trade agreements (RTAs) involving Latin American countries, whose exports tend to be more oriented towards agriculture. The paper compares the treatment of agriculture in RTAs between...

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have proliferated over the past decade around the world to cover nearly half of global trade. The number of RTAs notified to the WTO is approaching 200, while the total number of RTAs around the world exceeds 300. The global RTA spree has forged a veritable...

In the last years, intra-regional and extra-regional bilateral trade agreements have proliferated in the developing world, particularly in Asia and the Americas, where countries often belong to more than two agreements. The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have formed nearly...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of liberalisation in RTAs in the Americas in comparison to agreements in other world regions, and to put forth policy recommendations for multilateralising the regional RTAs. While primarily focusing on market access in goods-and tariff...

The book explores the impact of transport costs on trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, and argues that transport costs have assumed an unprecedented strategic importance to the region. The region can no longer rely solely on trade agreements, proximity, labor costs and an abundant supply...

Regional integration among asymmetric countries is a hot and burning policy topic worldwide. Deepening Integration in MERCOSUR analyzes the most important issues of economic integration and policy coordination that countries face as they advance towards deeper integration and are urged to...

Regional integration initiatives have long been part of the world economic landscape. In Latin America, integration flourished in the early post-war era but then lost momentum until the 1990s, when there was a new wave of initiatives ranging from free trade areas to customs unions. This Report...

Trade, investment, and financial relationships between developing regions are deepening. There is no better example than the relationship between Asia and the Pacific on one hand, and Latin America and the Caribbean on the other. To capitalize on the vast potential for interregional cooperation,...

In October 2000, the twelve countries of South America launched, a multinational, multisectoral and multidisciplinary initiative, whose main objective is to develop the region's infrastructure within a context of environmental sustainability. Supported by the Inter-American Development Bank...

This paper discusses the impacts of integration on productivity, specifically within regional agreements. The paper focuses on the economies of Brazil and Mexico and on their performance in the manufacturing sector. The authors estimate firm-level productivity and test its casual links with...